'Pyrates' of the Lyceum: Big Pharma, Patents, and Academic Freedom in Neoliberal Times

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Abstract

Academic freedom and freedom of expression are threatened by the corporatised university. As neoliberal policies embed themselves in all aspects of public (if not private) life, freedom of expression and academic freedom are being degraded and denigrated in the university, in the popular press, in the law, and in public life. The influence of intellectual property rights and proprietary claims surrounding patents are muzzling freedom of thought by corporate interests. Universities and the freedom of academic researchers to explore their fields have become casualties on this neoliberal battlefield. This political economy seeks to expose the free market contagion involved with patents, intellectual property, and the university in our postmodern neoliberal era. This is an era that proclaims itself as a new normal: this argument aspires to advance a patently problematic discourse to counter this brave new world and the intellectual pyscho-pharmacology and ideology of neoliberalism.